The last clause of the article under consideration is quoted for the same purpose:  “Nor shall private property he taken for public use without just compensation.”  Each of the state constitutions has a clause of similar purport.  The abolition of slavery in the District by Congress, would not, as we shall presently show; violate this clause either directly or by implication.  Granting for argument’s sake, that slaves are “private property,” and that to emancipate them, would be to “take private property” for “public use,” the objector admits the power of Congress to do this, provided it will do something else, that is, pay for them.  Thus, instead of denying the power, the objector not only admits, but affirms it, as the ground of the inference that compensation must accompany it.  So far from disproving the existence of one power, he asserts the existence of two—­one, the power to take the slaves from their masters, the other, the power to take the property of the United States to pay for them.

If Congress cannot constitutionally impair the right of private property, or take it without compensation, it cannot constitutionally, legalize the perpetration of such acts, by others, nor protect those who commit them.  Does the power to rob a man of his earnings, rob the earner of his right to them?  Who has a better right to the product than the producer?—­to the interest, than the owner of the principal?—­to the hands and arms, than he from whose shoulders they swing?—­to the body and soul, than he whose they are?  Congress not only impairs but annihilates the right of private property, while it withholds from the slaves of the District their title to themselves.  What!  Congress powerless to protect a man’s right to himself, when it can make inviolable the right to a dog!  But, waiving this, I deny that the abolition of slavery in the District would violate this clause.  What does the clause prohibit?  The “taking” of “private property” for “public use.”  Suppose Congress should emancipate the slaves in the District, what would it “take?” Nothing.  What would it hold?  Nothing.  What would it put to “public use?” Nothing.  Instead of taking “private property,” Congress, by abolishing slavery, would say “private property shall not be taken; and those who have been robbed of it already, shall be kept out of it no longer; and every man’s right to his own body shall be protected.”  True, Congress may not arbitrarily take property, as property, from one man and give it to another—­and in the abolition of slavery no such thing is done.  A legislative act changes the condition of the slave—­makes him his own proprietor, instead of the property of another.  It determines a question of original right between two classes of persons—­doing an act of justice to one, and restraining the other from acts of injustice; or, in other words, preventing one from robbing the other, by granting to the injured party the protection of just and equitable laws.